


Once Upon a Rainy Night

by lyryk (s_k)



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Torchwood
Genre: Community: redisourcolor, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-23
Updated: 2010-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 12:37:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2025372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_k/pseuds/lyryk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For challenge #8 at Redisourcolor: crossover, instant, green, peaches.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For challenge #8 at Redisourcolor: crossover, instant, green, peaches.

It happened in an instant. One moment they had been walking toward the SUV, and Jack’s hand had been on his, squeezing warmly, promising much more to come as soon as they were home, and the next, Ianto had been snatched away as if by a great, silent, invisible breeze that wrapped around him and surrounded him with darkness, pulling him away from Jack, both of them utterly helpless as the single-minded, yet somehow guileless power of the Rift tore Ianto away from all that he knew.

“Jack?” Ianto opened his eyes to find himself lying on his back, looking up at a night sky that his mind immediately registered was entirely too free of pollution. Clearly, he was either not on twenty-first century Earth anymore, or on a planet that was not Earth at all. There was a strange sensation on his face, as if tiny, invisible creatures were walking across his skin. It was a moment before he realised that they were raindrops; it was drizzling very lightly, soundlessly. At least rain was familiar. It would have to suffice, for the moment, to ground him. 

He lifted his head and immediately regretted it as a wave of nausea washed over him. This directed him to the cause of his discomfort: a shallow gash at the back of his head. When he touched it to try to discover the extent of the damage, his hand came away wet with blood.

He forced himself to sit up, willing the world around him to stop spinning; before he could take stock of his surroundings, a quiet voice came from the darkness, startling him considerably. “You had better not move more than strictly necessary, or you might hurt yourself further.”

Ianto whipped his head around at the words, ruthlessly squashing the scream of protest that welled up in his throat at the pain caused by the sudden movement. The first thing that caught his gaze was the muzzle of an old-fashioned dog-lock pistol, which happened to be pointed directly at his heart. His eyes followed the length of the weapon to the strong, steady fingers holding it, and then finally up to the face of the man who was apparently his captor. He looked to be in his thirties, at least as tall as Ianto himself—when he was on his feet, that is, and not huddled on the ground at the mercy of a stranger who could shatter his chest with a bullet at any instant. He was wearing the kind of military uniform that Ianto had only seen in period films, his blue coat complete with gold brocade that proclaimed his status as an extremely high-ranking officer. His head was bare, his long dark hair pulled away from his face and tied back neatly.

This would never do. Ianto tried to brace himself with one hand on the ground, tried to push himself to his feet, but the world immediately distracted him from his purpose by beginning to spin rather violently again.

The other man was instantly at his side, a firm hand on Ianto’s shoulder, guiding him gently back against the wall. “Steady, lad. Steady. I have no intention of harming you.”

“You’ve a funny way of showing it,” Ianto said hoarsely, eyeing the weapon warily. “Commodore,” he added, his vast reserves of knowledge finally starting to come to his aid as he got a closer look at the other man’s uniform. _Probably early eighteenth century_ , his brain supplied, and he was reasonably sure of that date given the pistol and the uniform, if annoyed with himself for not being able to identify the date with greater precision. If he hadn’t been in what was clearly a potentially perilous situation, he would also have allowed his mind to dwell further on the curious business of what a Navy officer was doing with a _cavalry_ pistol.

“A mere precaution, I assure you,” the Commodore said dismissively, but kept the gun firmly by his side. “The Rift has been sending some rather unpleasant beings through of late, and one cannot be too cautious.”

It took Ianto’s damaged senses a moment to register the meaning of the officer’s words. “Did you say the Rift? How could you possibly&mdash”

“I’ve seen twenty-first century clothes before, although, judging from your fascinated appraisal of my uniform, you’ve clearly never come across a flesh-and-blood eighteenth century man wearing a Navy uniform before,” the Commodore observed dryly. “Yet, you knew my post from looking at what I was wearing. You must know your history well.”

“I’m an archivist,” Ianto said instinctively. “It’s my job to know. But how do _you_ know about the Rift? About the twenty-first century?” 

The Commodore finally seemed to decide that the gun was not immediately required, for he returned it to the holster strapped to his waist. “We shall address your queries in a minute,” he said, beginning to unwrap the cravat around his throat with one hand. “Turn, please. Let me examine your wound.”

Ianto obeyed involuntarily, for the man spoke in a tone that made non-compliance impossible. He heard a tearing sound, and then gentle fingers were on his scalp, pressing a soft cloth to the gash. The Commodore bound the wound swiftly, expertly, using a square of cloth as padding against the gash and binding it in place with another strip of cloth that he wrapped around Ianto’s head. “My apologies for the crude bandage, but this will stop the bleeding until we can procure you a surgeon’s care,” the officer said.

“Thank you, but you haven’t answered my questions,” Ianto said as he turned back to face the officer. 

“Your safety was my primary concern,” the other man said, holding out his hand. “Shall we start afresh? James Norrington, Commodore of the Royal Navy in the Caribbean.”

Ianto shook the proffered hand. “Ianto Jones, Archivist of the Torchwood institute in Cardiff.”

“You’re Welsh,” Norrington observed. 

“And you’re English,” Ianto rejoined, equally deadpan, as though they were discussing each other’s cultural origins over cups of tea in a brightly-lit living room, rather than speaking in a moonlit alley as a result of decidedly preternatural Rift activity. 

Norrington laughed, a low, clear sound that was strangely reassuring. “So I am. But we are presently in Port Royal, Jamaica, in the year 1721. I’m afraid your Rift has made some sort of a connection between your time and this one, and Jack and I have been working together to attempt to contain the damage that it has caused.”

“Jack?” Ianto said blankly.

“You said his name as you awakened, so I presume you were expecting to see him?” Norrington said, his piercing green eyes fixed on Ianto’s.

“ _Captain_ Jack?” Ianto asked, even as he cringed inwardly at the realisation that the range of his vocabulary seemed suddenly limited to variations of Jack’s name.

“He does insist on the title, doesn’t he?” Norrington said fondly. “Unless you meant someone else?”

“No. I was just... making sure.” Ianto’s heart sank at the confirmation. Jack was still keeping secrets, then... even now, after they’d almost lost each other in the battle with the 456. It was impossible to miss the familiar way in which Norrington’s voice wrapped around Jack’s name, the way his tone coloured with affection when he spoke of him. _Of course,_ Ianto thought bitterly. _Of course Jack knows this tall, green-eyed Englishman, gorgeous in his Navy uniform. Of course he didn’t mention him to me. Why tell a part-time shag about the others he’s been with?_

A scuttling sound behind them broke the momentary silence; it was probably just a rat, Ianto thought, but Norrington’s head snapped up almost as if he were expecting someone to show up. A moment later his attention was back on Ianto. “Above you,” he said, gesturing, “is what we think is a gateway that connects this time with yours.”

Ianto turned and looked up at what seemed to be a dark, empty space above an innocuous-looking brick wall. “Jack and I have been monitoring the area, with some assistance from a few trustworthy associates of ours,” Norrington explained.

Clearly, Ianto himself was not one of those trustworthy associates. To hide his growing consternation, he turned away from the Commodore and stood cautiously, using the wall beside him for support. “Does it work both ways? Can I return through here?”

“I don’t know,” Norrington confessed, his eyes sympathetic. “To the best of my knowledge, it only works one way.”

 _So I’m stuck here. Unless Jack thinks I’m worth getting back,_ Ianto thought to himself, hands clenching involuntarily.

“Mister Jones?” There was concern in Norrington’s voice. “Do you feel all right?”

 _No, I bloody well don’t feel all right._ Ianto thought of Jack’s face just before the Rift had snatched him away, the warmth in those vivid blue eyes... Ianto had spectacularly misinterpreted that expression. And now he was marooned three hundred years away from home, all hope of rescue entirely dependent on the whims of Captain Jack Harkness.


	2. Chapter 2

“Mister Jones? Do you feel all right?” James asked, slightly alarmed at the stricken expression on the archivist’s face. The boy visibly pulled himself together, took a deep breath, and nodded. James smiled to himself. He was an admirable type, this one: the sort of person who would not allow instinct to conquer reason. James had long since come to appreciate this rare quality in individuals, for only those who possessed it could truly be relied upon in times of difficulty.

There was a rustling sound, and James’s head instinctively turned toward it. Jack was late, and he could not help being concerned that that damnable Rift had taken him away, as it had done Ianto Jones, or that it had unleashed something new that had had the opportunity to harm Jack before James had arrived on the scene. Jack’s contact in the twenty-first century had informed him that malevolent beings from other worlds routinely came through the Rift, and James would have been hard-pressed to believe such a theory had it not been for the evidence of his own eyes. Weevils, Jack had said they were called: among the most malignant creatures he had ever seen, they were things that seemed to exist only to prey on other living beings, and had a curious predilection for assaulting human beings. 

James and his trusted officers had been working tirelessly over the previous weeks both to contain the damage caused by the creatures, and to keep the true nature of the attacks hidden, for there would have been widespread panic had the citizens of Port Royal known that they were being preyed upon by beings from another world. Despite the fact that Captain Gillette and Lieutenant Groves had risen magnificently to the occasion, it was only with the assistance of Jack and his crew that the unlikely alliance of pirates and Navy men had truly saved the day when the Rift had sent a horde of Weevils through. Although there had been no more unwelcome visitors since then, James and Jack had returned every night to keep an eye on the gateway. For unknown reasons, the Rift had only been active between midnight and three o’clock in the morning thus far, and they had fallen into the routine of either keeping vigil themselves, or assigning a pair of their respective crew members to do so.

Tonight was the first time since the Weevils that the Rift had sent something through, and Ianto Jones had come as a surprise to James, who’d been prepared for more danger. Little had he expected to meet someone such as the young archivist, who appeared so much more a scholar than a soldier that James could not envision the thought of him encountering a Weevil, or something worse. Looking at him now, James berated himself for keeping him standing in the rain so long. 

“Come,” he said gently, letting his fingers rest lightly on the archivist’s arm, and Jones followed him wordlessly to an area of the alley that was somewhat protected from the elements since it had an awning over it: the remnant of some shop that had long-ago shut down its business. The boy seemed close to exhaustion, and James was surprised at the resilience that had kept him on his feet thus far, despite his injury and what must have been a rather disorienting travel through time and space. He guided Jones to sit on one of the large wooden boxes that were lined up against the wall, and the memory of sharing a seat with Jack on one of those boxes on a night not one week previously would almost have made him smile, had he not been so anxious about Jack’s present whereabouts.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Jones murmured, and James gave him a swift smile as he shrugged out of his coat. “Not entirely dry, but it will keep you warm while we wait.” He draped it across Jones’s coatless shoulders, and the other man wordlessly pulled it closer around himself.

“What are we waiting for?” Jones asked as James positioned himself on a nearby box that afforded him a clear view of the spot above the wall, in case anything else came through.

“Probably nothing,” James replied, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. “Rift activity thus far has been restricted to the time between midnight and three o’clock, and that is the time that we monitor the area. I would have preferred to send you to a safer place where your injury could be properly attended to, but we have no one to escort you and I would prefer that you stay with me, rather than find your own way to our allies. The night was dangerous enough before the gateway opened, and there is no predicting what perils may lie on your path.”

“Thank you,” Jones said simply, tiredly, resting his bandaged head carefully against the wall behind him. “If you like, I can keep an eye on the gateway, if you have elsewhere to be.” At James’s sidelong glance, he added, “I won’t fall asleep, I assure you.”

James nodded in thanks at the offer, knowing full well that acknowledging the gesture would do Jones a world of good, even if he had no intention of leaving the injured man alone to keep vigil at the unpredictable time portal. “Are you armed?” 

Jones nodded, reaching behind him and extracting the smallest pistol James had ever seen. He was usually extremely adept at noticing when someone had concealed weaponry on their person, but that was with the bulky weapons of his time, not this sleek, ridiculously tiny example of the kind of armaments humanity was to develop in the future. “May I?”

Jones handed over the weapon easily, and James hid a smile as he decided that the other man probably had more such weapons hidden away; Jones did not strike him as one who would trust easily at the best of times, and certainly not in a situation that had already endangered his life. He examined the gun with the detached professional curiosity that often took over when he came across interesting weapons, for while he could appreciate the craftsmanship that went into their making, he had never been able to bring himself to condone the deliberate construction of implements that had been designed with no other object but to cause injury or death.

“Don’t like carrying it,” Jones said, as though reading in James’s expression his disdain for the weapon’s purpose. “But where I come from, you never know when you’ll need defence.”

James handed the weapon back to its owner, who took it with a sure hand and replaced it in what must have been a minute holster attached to the back of his waistband.

*

“May I ask why a Navy commander would carry a cavalry pistol?” Ianto asked as he took back the fifty-first-century weapon that Jack had insisted he carry, and replaced it in its holster.

Norrington smiled. “You have a most discerning eye, Mister Jones. It was a gift from Jack, and I prefer it to my own weapons, which are bulkier.”

 _A gift from Jack._ Again, there was that hot swoop of humiliation in Ianto’s chest, and he forced himself to swallow it down. He would not dwell on Jack’s infidelities. Not anymore. To do so would be unfair to both him and Jack. After all, Jack had maintained that he hated the word ‘couple’, and they had never decided to be exclusive, not even after everything they had been through together. It had been Ianto’s mistake to assume that they wouldn’t be seeing other people, and Jack had actually done him a kindness by not mentioning his other lovers. If he ever found his way back to Cardiff, he would address the question of whether he could remain with Jack. It would be insanity to contemplate it at the moment, when he was not even certain if he would ever see Jack again. He leaned back against the wall, trying to focus on breathing, forcing himself to try to think of a response to what the Commodore had said.

 _“James!”_ The sharp cry tore through the night air, and Ianto almost fell off his box at the suddenness with which the silence had been broken. The shout was followed quickly by the scrape of booted feet striding across the cobbled ground, drawing closer.

“Jack!” The relief in the Commodore’s voice was tangible. He had sprung to his feet before the newcomer’s voice had stopped resounding in the quiet alley, and before Ianto had quite registered what was happening, the strangest man Ianto had ever seen had turned the corner, launched himself into the Commodore’s arms, and wrapped himself thoroughly around the taller man, all in the space of a few seconds.

It took another moment—during which the Commodore and the newcomer shared a brief, fierce kiss—for Ianto to realise what Norrington had said. _Jack._ Oh. _Oh._ Understanding washed over Ianto like a wave, together with an almost shattering sense of utter relief. It had been _this_ Jack that the Commodore had spoken so warmly of, not Jack Harkness.

“All right, love?” the man named Jack asked as he pulled back from the kiss, shaking his wild dark hair back, and Norrington nodded, his hands still firm on the newcomer’s hips. “And you?” he asked. “I was worried.” 

The other man waved a hand dismissively. “Another Weevil decided to take a little jaunt into the past. Ana and I got it to the brig.” He turned to face Ianto, one arm still hooked around the Commodore’s neck. “Captain Jack Sparrow,” he said, flashing him a grin and holding out his free hand.

“I’m sorry. I forgot my manners,” Norrington said, contrite, as Ianto shook the Captain’s hand rather dazedly, only just realising the true peculiarity of what he had just witnessed: two men together in an age when homosexuality was punishable by death. 

Perhaps it wasn’t even that they were both men, but just the simple, obvious fact that they were so different from each other: one a Navy commander and the other clearly not, for Captain Sparrow looked simply too idiosyncratic to be _allowed_. Nevertheless, the impression that was uppermost on Ianto’s mind was that whatever else they might have been separately, together they were almost ethereally beautiful.

*

The sound of the rain was, once again, the first thing that Ianto heard as consciousness returned to him. Opening his eyes was not currently an option, since his head felt as if it had been split neatly into two, so he tried to focus on where he was. A rather comfortable bed, he decided. Inexplicably, the bed appeared to be swaying gently.

He cracked open an eye cautiously, and when his head did not fall off at the movement, dared to open both his eyes. 

Moonlight streamed into the room from somewhere above his head, and as he looked up to find the source of the light, the mystery of the swaying bed, at least, was solved. There was a porthole above his head. Not a room at all, then, but a cabin on a ship. It was only then that the events of—how long ago had it been? A few hours?—of the night came back to him, the memory of returning with Commodore Norrington and Captain Sparrow to a dark ship in the rain, which had suddenly turned into a fierce downpour. His head had been throbbing with pain, and he had collapsed into sleep while barely conscious of his surroundings. It could not have been very long ago, for his clothes were still damp.

He tried to move his limbs, and found that one of his hands seemed pinned beneath something warm and heavy. Frowning, he turned to look at it and found that it was under another hand, this one belonging to someone asleep in a chair beside the bed, his long legs stretched out on the floor in front of him, ankles crossed.

For several moments, he simply watched Jack, unable to repress the guilty pang that arose in him. Jack’s expression was impassive, and Ianto had managed to convince himself that Jack didn’t care, but the way Jack’s hand was clutching the armrest of the chair told Ianto how weary and anxious he was. 

“Hey,” he said finally, softly, and Jack’s eyes flew open. He smiled broadly, tiredly, and moved immediately to sit on the bed by Ianto’s side.

“Hey,” Jack said, his hand cupping Ianto’s face. “How’re you doing?”

“Pretty good, considering,” Ianto said honestly, sitting up gingerly. There was no spinning, and he took it as a good sign. Jack’s arms went around him as he sat up, steadying him, and Ianto leaned into him, burying his face in the warm, familiar wool of Jack’s RAF coat. His senses tingled at the combined fragrance of Jack and the rain that clung to Jack’s coat, and he took a deep, ravenous breath. “How the hell did you find me?” he said, his voice muffled against Jack’s shoulder.

Jack nuzzled Ianto’s neck as he replied, in that way he had of pressing his face into Ianto’s skin as though he were breathing Ianto in, just to reassure himself that Ianto was really there. “Tosh figured out a way to determine the coordinates of where the Rift had taken you, and the rest was easy. The vortex manipulator got me here.”

“Thank you, Tosh,” Ianto murmured, slipping a hand beneath the cuff of Jack’s coat, needing to touch his skin and feel his warmth. Jack’s breath hitched in his chest, and he pressed closer. “I was terrified,” he said into Ianto’s hair, so softly that Ianto had to strain to make out the words. “Terrified.”

A thought struck Ianto suddenly. “How long did it take you to figure out where I was?”

He felt Jack wince. “Two weeks.”

 _Oh, fuck._ It had only been a few hours for Ianto, but it had been fourteen days for Jack and the rest of the team. Ianto imagined what it would feel like to go two weeks without knowing where Jack was, and shuddered. It would be nightmarish, even with the knowledge that Jack couldn’t die. He would have been a wreck by the end of it.

“I’m sorry,” Ianto said, also meaning _I’m sorry I doubted you_ , but Jack didn’t know that, and this was not the time to bring it up. He slid his hand up Jack’s back instead, bringing it up to cup the nape of Jack’s neck and stroke his hair. “I’m sorry.”

“You could have been sent anywhere,” Jack said, his voice barely a whisper. “The centre of a blazing sun, or a planet where the atmosphere wasn’t breathable, or—”

“Sshhh,” Ianto said gently, moving back slightly so he could frame Jack’s face with both his hands. “I could have, but I wasn’t. I’m here. I’m all right.”

Jack nodded, taking a shaky breath and resting his forehead against Ianto’s. “You ready to go home now?”

“Yeah,” Ianto said softly, running his thumb lightly over Jack’s lower lip. “Let’s go say goodbye.”

*

‘Goodbye’ ended up lasting for the next several hours, which quickly became one of the most memorable interludes of Ianto’s life. It turned out that Jack had indeed been Captain Sparrow’s contact in the twenty-first century, although, in Jack’s timeline, it had been almost three years since he’d last met Captain Sparrow. Ianto and Jack spent a pleasant time in the beautiful galleon’s great cabin with the Commodore and Captain Sparrow, drinking extravagant amounts of the most heavenly rum Ianto had ever tasted while the four of them exchanged tales from their respective worlds.

Plans were also made to deal with the threat that the Rift was currently presenting to Port Royal, and while the two Captains tried to work out a system through which they would be able to communicate, Commodore Norrington showed Ianto a set of exquisitely detailed maps that he and Captain Sparrow had been working on, since both of them shared a keen interest in cartography. To Ianto’s delight, the Commodore insisted on gifting him a copy of a map of Jamaica and its surrounding ports that he had just made. 

“For your archives, Mister Jones,” he smiled.

“Ianto,” Ianto insisted. Norrington’s smile broadened into an amicable grin, and for a moment he looked as young as Ianto. “Only if you address me as James.”

“It’s a deal, James,” Ianto grinned back.

They spread the map out over the large, ornate, wooden table in the great cabin, and James pointed out the precise location of the portal on the map; Tosh would need the exact coordinates if they were to try to prevent the Rift from sending anyone else into the past. Ianto briefly told James about the Rift’s other victims, and how some of them had been returned to their time as shadows of their former selves, and James listened in mute horror. 

“I am glad to know you have a safer way to get back home,” James said quietly when he had finished. He glanced across the room to where the two Captains were arguing animatedly and good-naturedly about the best way to send messages across three centuries. 

“There is something I must apologise for,” James said, lowering his voice further, gesturing for Ianto to bend his head closer to him over the map. “I’m afraid I did not know that Jack’s twenty-first century friend was also a Captain Jack, and I think I inadvertently gave you the impression that there was... something... between your Captain Jack and me.”

Ianto felt his face grow warm, and looked down at the map with its neat coastlines, carefully drawn in blank ink. “You don’t miss much, do you?” he murmured.

James smiled. “It may not be my place to say this, so forgive me for presuming to say it. But if you were to ask me, you have nothing to fear where your Captain Harkness is concerned.”

Ianto took another sip of rum to buy a little time, for his heart did a funny little somersault at James’s words. “Why do you say that?”

“When he arrived in search of you, it was clear that he was absolutely devastated by what had happened to you. I have never seen anyone in such a state of distraction. His distress was palpable, and only lessened somewhat when he laid eyes on you and ascertained for himself that you were in no immediate danger.”

“Thank you,” Ianto said sincerely, moved by the Commodore’s words. “It was very generous of you to think of sharing that with me.” 

James stood up, squeezing Ianto’s shoulder briefly in acknowledgement of the younger man’s thanks, and Ianto began rolling up the precious map carefully. He glanced over to where Jack was still in conversation with the _Black Pearl_ ’s captain. Sensing his gaze, Jack turned his head and gave him a quick, happy smile, and Ianto returned it, glad to see that Jack seemed more relaxed now compared with the state of nervous anxiety he had seemed to be in when he had sat at Ianto’s bedside.

*

Later, after a plan of action had been decided on—Jack and his team would begin working immediately on trying to sever the link that the Rift seemed to have established between their time and the past, and Jack would travel back in time at regular intervals to check if James and Jack needed any assistance—and Ianto and Jack had both been sworn at in three different languages by an impossibly brightly-coloured parrot who seemed to think that everyone existed for his personal entertainment, the four of them made their way to a pristine beach of white sand beside the snug cove in which the _Black Pearl_ had made her harbour.

“Why’s everyone so bloody _tall_?” Jack Sparrow complained, leaping gracefully on to a rock and grinning as he towered over the other three. “That’s better,” he said feelingly, reaching down to place a hand on James’s shoulder and smiling down warmly at him before turning his attention back to Ianto and Jack.

“You’re pretty as peaches together!” he called out in delighted approval, and Jack laughed and slid an arm around Ianto’s waist, pulling him close for the ride back home.

“Forgive him, he’s terrible!” James called over the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, laughing.

Ianto took one more look at the two figures on the shore, their silhouettes glowing in the light of the rising sun, and gave them one last wave, smiling as he saw James reach up to place his hand over Jack’s, still on his shoulder. 

“Hang on, this might be a bit rough,” Jack said as he fiddled with the vortex manipulator on his wrist strap. “I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of those two,” he said, flashing them his trademark grin before turning to Ianto. “Ready?” he asked, his grin softening to the smile that was reserved only for Ianto. 

“As I’ll ever be,” Ianto replied, leaning forward to claim Jack’s lips just as his lover activated the vortex manipulator. 

Jack would swear for a long time to come that the kiss had been an absolute stroke of brilliance, and that they must do it every single time they travelled through the time vortex together. And they did.


End file.
